This study aims to develop a method to investigate the relationship between settlement locations and the morphological landforms using geographical information systems (GIS). The method is applied to &Ccedil / ankiri province, a mountainous terrain, which is covered in seventy-seven sheets of topographic maps at 1:25.000 scale. Three databases are created and used in this study: 1) Settlement database comprising various topographic and landform attributes of 891 settlements, 2) Morphological landform database composed of 4042 landform polygon elements digitized from 1:25.000 topographic maps, and 3) Topographic database containing the digital elevation model of the area and its derivatives. The first step in the algorithm is to classify the area into four main landform classes, namely, valley, slope, flood and top. Unsuitable landforms are then clipped out based on the thresholds derived from three topographic properties (elevation, slope and aspect). Accordingly, about 2 % of the settlements and 12 % of the area are removed. The relationship is investigated using the percentages of remaining settlements and landform classes. Further analyses such as position of the settlement within the landform polygon and type of the nearest landforms are carried out for final interpretation. Following conclusions are reached on the relationship between settlement location and morphological landforms: - Percentages of settlements for flood, valley, slope and top are 8.37, 27.52, 58.60 and 5.50, respectively. Considering the percentages of the landforms provided in the area, however, valley is the most preferred landform followed by flood type. Slope and top landforms are less preferred. About 86 % of the settlements are concentrated along valley-slope boundary. - Morphological boundaries of flood and top landforms are consistent with the settlement zones. The valley-slope boundary, on the other hand, which is the most populated area, cross-cut the settlements zones.

Thermotherapy using natural thermal mud has played a crucial role for human health care since ancient times. However, recently the SPA and Wellness Centers have come into prominence with the exhaustion of primary reserves of natural thermal mud. In these centers, instead of natural thermal mud, peloids prepared using clay and/or clay minerals with thermal or mineral water through maturation process that changes the physicochemical properties of the clay and/or clay minerals. Turkey has several clay reserves / however, the investigation about their suitability for the pelotherapic applications is not adequate. The aim of this study is to investigate the mineralogical, chemical, and physicochemical properties of the 13 different samples collected from K&uuml / &ccedil / &uuml / khacibey, Hancili, and Kazbekir localities in &Ccedil / ankiri and Kizil&ouml / ren, Karadirek, and H&uuml / dai localities in Afyonkarahisar in order to evaluate their suitability for pelotherapic applications. The results of mineralogical, chemical, and physicochemical analyses including cation exchange capacity, swelling index, plastic index, water loss, specific surface area, grain size and cooling rate properties were compared with the results in the previous studies. For maturation process distilled water and two different commercial mineral water with different chemical compositions were used. At the end of the four week long maturation, the peloids are evaluated in the sense of consistency, ease of handling and pleasant sensation during application. Evaluation of analyses results showed that clay deposits in Hancili and K&uuml / &ccedil / &uuml / khacibey localities in &Ccedil / ankiri can be considered being suitable for pelotherapic applications. On the other hand, clay deposits in Kazbekir locality in &Ccedil / ankiri and in all three localities in Afyonkarahisar cannot be considered being suitable for pelotherapic purposes.

This study aims to develop a method to investigate the relationship between socio-economic status of village settlements and some topographic variables using geographical information systems (GIS) and spatial statistical methods. The study area is &Ccedil / ankiri province, a mountainous region that lays at the northeast of Ankara. 331 villages represented by areal units are used in this study. 195 variables are used to extract a single socio-economic status indicator. First, all the variables are divided under three groups, namely economic, social and service. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) is used to construct an index indicating socio-economic status. The parameters that represent natural environment are / mean elevation, mean slope, mean aspect and the ratio of high quality soil in the total area, for each settlement unit. The data is visualized by choropleth, cartogram and 3D techniques. Then it is explored by using correlograms, spatial moving averages and geographically weighted regression (GWR). Finally linear non-spatial regression and spatial regression methods are utilized in order to establish a relation between the socio-economic status and environmental parameters.

This study introduces an approach that seeks a possible relationship between settlement locations, water resources and rock types. The method is applied to &Ccedil / ankiri province (central-north Anatolia) which covers approximately an area of 8380 km2. Three main data sets used in this study. These are settlement, water and rock type data.The methodology of the study is composed of five steps. The first step is the conversion of all water data into a standardized point data. Total number of point data for water is 23911 after this step. The second step is to find the distances between water resources and settlements. In the third step the densities of water resources and settlements are derived and then tested for the rock types in particular areas. The fourth step is the overlay analysis in which all three data sets are combined to find preferred and avoided regions of settlements in relation to water resources and rock types. In the last step all analyses are integrated to extract information on effect of two parameters on the selection of a site. The main conclusions derived from the analysis are that: a) the mean and median distances between settlements and water resources are, 285 m and 163 m respectively, b) there is a strong relationship between water resources and settlement area, c) old clastics is the mostly preferred rock type whereas the carbonate rocks are mostly avoided.